Grimes says she’s changed her and Elon Musk’s daughter’s name from Exa Dark Sideræl

Singer welcomed daughter via surrogate with Elon Musk in December 2021

Isobel Lewis
Monday 27 March 2023 07:48 BST
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Grimes shares video of Elon Musk cuddling tiny newborn son X Æ A-12

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Grimes has revealed that she has shortened her daughter’s unusual name.

The musician shares two young children with Twitter CEO Elon Musk, son X Æ A-Xii (nicknamed X), two, and daughter Exa Dark Sideræl Musk (nicknamed Y), two.

Her daughter was secretly born via surrogate and accidentally revealed in an interview with Vanity Fair in March 2022, when the journalist heard a baby crying in Grimes’s house.

The “Kill V Maim” singer said at the time that she’d wanted to keep her daughter’s identity a secret, as her son was “just out there”.

On Thursday (23 March), Grimes posted a rare photo of her daughter on Twitter, sharing two pictures of her and her daughter in red onesies with green hair.

“Y [dragon emoji] C,” she captioned the Twitter post, the C a reference to her real name, Claire.

In a follow-up tweet to a fan account, Grimes then confirmed that her daughter’s name had been changed, and she was now going by just Y (pronounced “why”).

“She’s Y now, or ‘Why?’ or just ‘?’ (But the government won’t recognise that),” the scuriosity, the eternal question,  .. and such.”

Grimes has ran into trouble with the government recognising her children’s names in the past. X’s full name was originally X Æ A-12, but the name reportedly violated California naming laws, so the number was changed to an “Xii”.

Grimes clarified she’s shortened her daughter’s name
Grimes clarified she’s shortened her daughter’s name (Grimes/Twitter)

The 35-year-old also clarified that while she didn’t usually post pictures of her daughter “for privacy”, the child looked “fairly unrecognisable here”.

In the interview in which Y’s identity was revealed, Grimes told writer Devin Gordon: “Whatever is going on with family stuff, I just feel like kids need to stay out of it, and X is just out there.

“I mean, I think [Musk] is really seeing him as a protégé and bringing him to everything and stuff... X is out there. His situation is like that. But, yeah, I don’t know.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said of her decision to invite a journalist to her house.

Grimes and Musk explained how to pronounce their son’s original name in 2020.

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